About Dwight Longenecker

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. A graduate of Oxford University, he is the Pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Church, in Greenville, SC, and author of twenty books, including Immortal Combat, Beheading Hydra: A Radical Plan for Christians in an Atheistic Age, The Romance of Religion, The Quest for the Creed, and Mystery of the Magi: The Quest to Identify the Three Wise Men, and The Way of the Wilderness Warrior. His autobiography, There and Back Again, a Somewhat Religious Odyssey, is published by Ignatius Press. Visit his blog, listen to his podcasts, join his online courses, browse his books, and be in touch at dwightlongenecker.com.

Twelve Reasons to Support the American Solidarity Party

By |2024-03-14T19:53:14-05:00March 14th, 2024|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, Politics, Senior Contributors|

As we approach the presidential election, I can proudly say I am not supporting either of the main candidates, but that I am a member of the American Solidarity Party. Like Don Quixote, I shall don my saucepan helmet, ride out on Rocinante, and tilt at some windmills. We all know the set reactions to [...]

Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Laughter, & Lent

By |2024-03-11T21:37:40-05:00March 11th, 2024|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Jane Austen, Lent, Literature, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

C.S. Lewis' obscure essay, ‘A Note on Jane Austen,’ shows that it is Austen’s humor and humility that captures Lewis’ fancy and that directs us to a Lenten lesson. In his rule Saint Benedict advises that each monk should have a holy book to read during Lent. When searching for a holy book, we are [...]

Lent, Laughter, and the Joyful Soul

By |2024-03-06T20:37:21-06:00March 6th, 2024|Categories: Catholicism, Dwight Longenecker, Lent, Timeless Essays|

In this world darkened by the gloom of the seriously self-righteous, what is needed more than ever is the rumbustious, rollicking good humor of men and women who have seen the eternal perspective and have therefore put this world in its proper place. Before his sudden fall from the limelight last week, an interestingly entertaining [...]

Opting for Benedict in an Ordinary Parish

By |2024-03-01T18:37:07-06:00March 1st, 2024|Categories: Catholicism, Dwight Longenecker, Sainthood, Senior Contributors, St. Benedict|

Within the liturgy, within our academic life, within our hard work in serving the poor in a needy parish, we are seeking in our own small way to take the Benedict option. Like St Benedict we’re not trying to change the whole world. We’re simply doing what we can with what we have where we [...]

C.S. Lewis on the Existence of Fairies

By |2024-01-26T19:12:24-06:00January 26th, 2024|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Dwight Longenecker, Senior Contributors|

C.S. Lewis would most certainly have remembered the interest in fairies from the 1920s, and his fascination with other realms, and with fantasy, myth, legends and folklore would guarantee a continued interest in the possible existence of fairies. Cottingley Fairies “If you believe in Fairies… clap your hands.” Or so you are encouraged [...]

Blind Benjamin Franklin

By |2024-01-16T19:15:44-06:00January 16th, 2024|Categories: Benjamin Franklin, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Religion, Timeless Essays|

Even today, many Americans take an intentionally anti-intellectual stance, agreeing with the rationalists that faith and reason are incompatible. Blind Benjamin Franklin is father to them all. Apart from his rejection of wigs and the incident with the kite, the key and the lightning bolt, I’m afraid I have never been impressed or attracted to [...]

Peco Gaskovski, Author of “Exogenesis”: A Conversation

By |2024-01-15T17:51:54-06:00January 15th, 2024|Categories: Books, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Literature, Orthodoxy, Senior Contributors|

Peco Gaskovski’s "Exogenesis" has been described as “Blade Runner meets the Benedict Option." In the novel, a thousand-mile metropolis named Lantua has emerged from the collapse of the USA. Artificial birthing and strict reproductive control is enforced with hi-tech social conditioning, 24-7 monitoring by the state, and the total loss of freedom, disguised by smooth [...]

Men in Hats: An Endangered Species

By |2024-01-13T16:23:29-06:00January 12th, 2024|Categories: Community, Culture, Dwight Longenecker, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

When will men in hats come back? When men come back. When we push back from our desks and laptops, turn off the television and go back outdoors where we belong, we will start to need hats again. Whatever happened to the hat? Whither the fedora? Where have they stashed the Stetsons? Who has banished [...]

Did Matthew Make Up the Magi?

By |2024-01-08T17:58:33-06:00January 8th, 2024|Categories: Christmas, Dwight Longenecker, Epiphany, Senior Contributors|

When researching the story of the Magi visiting the Christ child in Bethlehem, it is not long before one discovers the scholar’s opinion that the Magi story is likely to be a story concocted by the early Christians—and probably Matthew himself, in order to show Jesus to be the long-looked-for Messiah and fulfillment of the [...]

Did the Three Wise Men Really Exist?

By |2024-01-05T18:39:40-06:00January 5th, 2024|Categories: Books, Christmas, Dwight Longenecker, Epiphany, Timeless Essays|

It is easy to understand why skeptical New Testament scholars have relegated the magi from Matthew’s gospel to the realm of fantasy. Were they fanciful figures from the imagination of  Matthew, or historical figures who existed at the time of Christ’s birth? Every good fantasy story needs a magician. Dorothy encounters the Wizard of Oz. [...]

Pagans, a Pope, & Sauron: How We Got New Year’s Day

By |2023-12-31T18:31:01-06:00December 31st, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Culture, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, New Year's Day, Timeless Essays|

As you celebrate New Year’s Day remember that for one thousand years the welcoming of a new year was not just a calendar event, but a culturally religious event which linked the renewal of nature with the redemption of the world. Some atheists, Muslims, and Christian fundamentalists like to grumble and gibe that the celebration [...]

No Room in the Inn — What Inn?

By |2023-12-17T18:05:22-06:00December 17th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Christmas, Dwight Longenecker, Senior Contributors|

The typical re-telling of the Christmas story has Joseph, Mary and the donkey arriving in Bethlehem on a cold, winter night looking for a place to stay. All the hotels have “No Vacancy” signs on display because so many people, like Mary and Joseph, have traveled to Bethlehem to register for the census. A grumpy [...]

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